How My Bitter Journey Began

I was eleven when I met my half-sister.  Twelve, when my father chose to live with her and her mother. And thirteen, when he asked me to spend two weeks that summer with him and his new family in Oakland.  It’s dishonest to call them his “new family” as technically they existed 3 ½ months before I came into the world; yet 3 ½ years after my father had started a family with my mother. It sounds terribly complicated, but somehow when you’re a kid, and those are the facts of your life, they are simply that, the facts of your life. 

I spent every summer of my adolescence visiting my father and his family. And yes, it's when my BITTER journey began. I know its perfectly commonplace now, but I think there is something inherently unhealthy about a child being a guest in her parent's home...especially a female child going into a competitive female household. My half-sister and I had little in common. She lusted for Teddy Pendergrass, I dreamed of marrying Michael Jackson. I had a jheri curl, aviator glasses and corny clothing. She had relaxed hair, contacts, tight jeans and cool t-shirts. I was nowhere near her league, and she subtly and not so subtly let me know it. ‘Nuf said (for now). 

For this particular visit, my mother drove me to LAX in her bronze coffee-stained Chevy Chevette. She was so proud of that cheap-ass hatchback because it was the first car she had purchased without the aid of my father. She maneuvered it as though it were a convertible Benz. Her black leather driving gloves caressed the steering wheel as if it were flanked in polished mahogany and tanned suede.  She was a proud woman in her satin blouse purchased on sale at a consignment shop, and her Cleopatra Jones afro. She was broke, but classy. She could never accept defeat to the woman whose house I was about to enter. 

She coached me, “It’s your job to bring your father back. Ask him when he’s coming home!” The knot that appeared in that instant, stayed in my stomach for the next two weeks (hell, I think it's still there). I knew that my father was not a man to be confronted, to be questioned, to be challenged; at least not by my mother, my sister or me. In our traditional West Indian home, my father ruled, absolutely. Even when he wasn't there. 

My mother called midway through my two week visit, "Have you talked to Daddy, yet?"

"No."

"Well, don’t forget to ask him when he’s coming home, OK?! It's very important!”

"Uhm, OK."

Somehow my mother was convinced that I had a magical power. That my demanding my father’s return would simply make it so. She didn’t see what I saw year after year. My dad like he’d never been with us. So loving, so funny, so big. Our house had always been quiet. No one ever shut up in this house. Here my father laughed and cajoled. He was a goddam Cliff Huxtable. This father was completely foreign to me. I could not break my mother’s heart by sharing these truths.

The ride to the Oakland airport was much harder than the ride to LAX two weeks prior. My father’s boxy Volvo constricted me from the moment that I sat down on its rich leather seat. I lowered and raised the window at least a dozen times. I was desperate to breathe fresh air. I was desperate to jump out of the car. I was desperate to do anything other than the task my mother had reminded me of the night before,  “Have you asked your father when he’s coming home?” 

The  Beatles were on the radio singing, my father’s favorite song:

“Something in the way she moves, 

attracts me like no other lover.  

Something in the way she woos me.  

I don’t want to leave her now; 

You know I believe and how!”  

His head was cocked to the side as if replaying some great memory.  I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. My breathing became short and painful. My father stopped the car and turned to me. “What’s the matter?”  His Asian eyes, dark brown skin, and thick eyeglasses looked down at me with utter confusion. I couldn't look at him. I had no idea how I was supposed to convince him that his vacation, not mine needed to come to an end. I thought of my sheroes. The bold women whom I admired, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, Cher.  They would never let Dad get away with this shit.  They'd speak up.  Make Mom proud.

”When are you coming home?” I cried.

He stiffened, looked at me, then straight ahead, and said, “I am home, Babe!” 

We drove to the Oakland airport in silence.  I returned to Oxnard.  Mission not accomplished.

Were you a parent's intermediary? Are you a parent guilty of using your child to communicate with your ex?  Share your story.

PURGE AND SURGE